We're going to rock around the clock tonight!

Do you remember your high school prom? My graduating class organized a nice meal in a restaurant followed by a dance with a DJ. My date was younger than I, a friend of a friend, who had to be home by 11 and whom I remember accompanying to the bus stop so he could catch his ride. I then rejoined my classmates and partied until we were kicked out.

All the high school proms that I have seen in various teen movies consist of a ballroom (usually at some hotel or in the school gym) with all the graduating students decked out in their finery for dancing, maybe breaking for refreshments at some point, but basically mingling with their classmates and boogying to canned or live music.

They do things a little differently at the regional high school in town because kids are bused in from as far away as Stanstead (right on the Vermont border), Sawyerville and Magog, places which are normally 30 to 45 minutes' drive away. They made the prom into a family affair where the parents are invited (they have to buy tickets) to watch their sons and daughters "promenade" around the room in their tuxedos and ball gowns and be presented with a plaque congratulating them on having completed high school. The chairs are then cleared away and replaced with tables where the older folks can sit while the young 'uns dance to much too loud canned music.

It seemed to me that there was something terribly wrong with this picture: a high school prom should be for the kids. But because many of them would never be able to get to the Delta H0tel without parental assistance, or get home again, they do it this way instead. We (Hubby, Little Princess and I) were pretty bored. I got all dressed up in my new dress, the black one with the puffy sleeves and the sequins on the bodice and I actually got to dance with Buddy Boy one time. Hubby was exhausted (he'd been at a conference all day, followed by tennis in the heat) and Little Princess kept saying, "Can we go now?" alternating with, "Was my prom this boring?"

We finally sorted things out with Buddy Boy, making sure he had a ride to the party afterwards (in a church basement in Coaticook, about a 20-minute drive east of us, where he is going to sleep in a tent in someone's backyard) and came home. Hahahahaha! It's pouring rain right now. I guess this will be another of those character-building experiences we're so fond of talking about.

Yes, photographs were taken, but because we still have an analog camera, your guess as to when they'll be developed and scanned and posted is as good as mine. But be assured that I will share them, if I can even remember what they are when I pick them up from the pharmacy.